Mistakes we've made, and what they cost

Any firm claiming a clean record is either very young or not telling you everything. We keep a written list of our mistakes, and we read it more often than the wins.

The errors of commission are the obvious ones. Businesses we bought and should not have, usually because we liked the management more than the economics, or talked ourselves past a fact we did not want to be true. Those cost real money and taught real lessons.

The expensive kind

Our worst mistakes have been errors of omission. The wonderful businesses we understood, judged correctly, and did not buy because the price was a little uncomfortable. Those cost far more than the bad purchases ever did, and they show up on no performance figure anywhere. Writing them down is the only way we have found to learn from a loss that never appears on a statement.

The views above are the firm's own and are provided for information only. They are not investment advice, nor an offer or solicitation to invest. Capital at risk; the value of investments can go down as well as up, and past performance is not a guide to future results.